Last week we heard about The Minor Old Testament Prophet Habakkuk, minor because the book that bears his name is short, only 3 chapters long as opposed to The Major Old Testament Prophet Isaiah whose book is 66 chapters.
Habakkuk differs markedly from the other prophetic books. Whereas most of the others contain the words of the Lord addressed to the people, in the Book of Habakkuk the prophet, as the representative of the people, addresses and challenges The Lord. He directs his words to The lord. He begins by complaining about the apparent indifference of the Lord to the violence, the strife, and the widespread corruption in Judah.
The prophet is puzzled over this indifference, knowing as he does, the righteous and holy character of God.
From Habakkuk’s perspective God wasn’t doing anything about the sins of the people and Habakkuk, a righteous man, actually complained to God about God.
He had some nerve!
And I am caused to wonder? If we had a Habakkuk in our midst today, what would he or she say?
Would he or she cry out to God in protest about His apparent inaction over the war in Ukraine?
Would he or she cry out to God in protest about His apparent inaction over the corruptions of the politicians in this country and abroad?
Would he or she cry out to God in protest over the rising fuel prices and the astronomical profits the energy companies are making or the fact that people are going to have to choose whether to feed their children or heat their homes this coming winter.
Would He or she cry out in protest, like Habakkuk before them, “ How long, Lord, must we call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, ‘Violence!’ but you do not save? Why do you make us look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrongdoing? Destruction and violence are all around us; there is strife, and conflict abounds. Therefore the law is paralysed, and justice never seems to prevail. The wicked people surround the righteous people, so that justice is perverted. (Habakkuk 1:1-4)
Actually though, God sees everything. He saw the sins of the people. He heard Habakkuk's complaints even before Habakkuk spoke them out and He was already acting. Judgement was coming on the people because God always, always, always punishes sinners.
And that brings us to the subject of God’s judgements.
It seems to me that we have been conditioned to believe that Judgement will come, yes it will, it’s inevitable because our God is righteous and He demands that the sins of the world be atoned for.
Atonement, according to the dictionary, is ‘the action of making amends for a wrong or injury,’ and it is but, according to our NT christian theology, it also means ‘the reconciliation of God and mankind through Jesus Christ.’
In the OT, atonement meant blood sacrifices, the people sinned and then they atoned. They bought to the temple spotless doves, spotless lambs and in the event of really serious sins spotless calves, and the priests killed the animal and sprinkled it’s blood on the alter stones. The meat would then be burned so that the pleasing aroma of roasting flesh would be carried up to God, and the sinner could walk away from the temple courts feeling that their sin had been paid for and that God was satisfied.
In this ‘post Christ’ world we no longer have to sacrifice our animals to satisfy God.
God, by sending Jesus into the world, provided for the ultimate atonement sacrifice.
A once and for all sacrifice that would atone for the sins of all believers, past, present and future sins, and to receive that redemption all the sinner has to do is believe that God did this for us.
And that's great, for individuals who have committed sins, but what about groups of people?
What about tribes who let certain sins become a habit?
What about villages, towns and cities, and what about whole nations?
The longer we are Christian, the stronger our beliefs, the greater our faith becomes, and the more we become aware of the sin around us.
The sin in our own family and in our friends and colleagues, the sin in our town and our city. The sins of our nation as we compromise and dilute the Gospel Of Jesus Christ, and we are offended, righteously so, and if we are offended when we see these things from our limited world point of view how much more must God be offended when He sees the sins of nations from His godly perspective?
And how can He punish those who offend Him?
Well, individuals are easy, from God’s point of view, because scripture tells us that we can expect Judgement in heaven and after judgement comes hell. Thats right, there’s no time spent in hell and then a blessed release, there is just hell. Hell is a place where there is no God.
But for the righteous man or woman there is heaven which, loosely defined, is eternity with God.
So that brings us to the groups of people who sin, who offend God, and that could be families, organisations, villages, towns, cities and even nations.
And these groups are earthly groupings not heavenly groupings and therefore, I believe, that God’s judgement occurs, to them, here on earth. Here, in the now!
If you don’t believe me consider pandemics. If God loves us then why do such events exist?
Consider wars. If God loves us then why do wars exist?
Consider famines and natural disasters. If God loves us then why do famines and natural disasters exist?
The answer is that God causes His judgements to fall upon those ‘groups’ that sin against Him, that offend Him, in this world and in this life, not in the next.
In our scripture this morning we saw the culmination of Jonah’s mission to the city of Nineveh. Jonah has already disobeyed God and God’s direct response was to whip up a storm and cause Jonah to be swallowed by a whale.
Whilst in the belly of the whale Jonah prays to God. He repents of his sin; ‘When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, Lord, and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple. ‘Those who cling to worthless idols turn away from God’s love for them. But I, with shouts of grateful praise, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will make good. I will say, “Salvation comes from the Lord.”’ And (In response) the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land. Jonah 2:7-10
And God gives Jonah a second chance, why? Well firstly because Jonah repented of his sin and secondly, and most importantly, God had selected Jonah as His messenger and God is never wrong!
Lastly Nineveh has sinned against God and His plan, if they don’t repent of their sin, is to destroy Nineveh in 40 days.
We don’t know how God intended to judge Nineveh. Maybe it would be a plague, maybe a flood, maybe a huge earthquake, maybe an earthly army or the heavenly army arrayed against them, we are not told. What we are told is that when the people and the king heard Jonah’s preaching they repented of their sin and the city was saved.
Not so with the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, In Genesis 19:20-21 we read, ‘Then the Lord said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know.”
And God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, why? Because He had heard the outcry against them.
His judgement against Sodom and Gomorrah happened here on earth not in heaven and not in some future time.
Note that God heard the outcry!
The righteous people around those cities must have cried out to The Lord loud and long, and God heard them.
God heard Habakkuk's outcry and if we shout long enough and loud enough I am sure He will hear our outcry too.
But, before we cry out to God, before we complain to God about the sins of others we need to ensure that our own house is in order first.
We need to ensure that we are righteous in the eyes of The Lord because, I am certain, hypocrisy is just as bad a sin as any other.
We need to ensure that we have a clear conscience by praying to Jesus to forgive our sins and accepting Him as our Lord and Saviour.
He will redeem us from our sin, because He has promised to do so, and only when our slate is clean can we protest, as Habakkuk did, to God and ask Him to intervene in the sins of others.
But what about those family members, those colleagues, those organisations, villages, towns, cities and nations who’s sin has cause us to cry out long and loud to God?
Is our aim to have God punish them or is our aim that they should, as Nineveh did, repent of their sins and turn back to God.
It must be the latter because our God is love, He must be, to tolerate so much for so long.
But then there are The Sodom and Gemorrahs out there. The ones who refuse to turn back to God, the ones who don’t want to know Him, the ones who don’t listen to His messengers, His prophets or His warnings. They somehow have come to believe that they are invulnerable to God’s judgements.
But they are not, no one and no where is.
Friends, let us do our bit. Let us ensure that our own lives are in order and then let us cry out to God, long and loud, so that the guilty will feel His wrath and know that He is God.
So that justice will be done.
In Jesus name, amen.
